Internationalization in Tertiary Education: Intra-European Students Mobility

The enhanced internationalization and mobility of European students reflects an undoubtedly important aspect of human capital investment. This paper examines the internationalization of European students in tertiary education and the factors that determine the probability of a student moving to a European country other than their own. The main goals of the Bologna Process and a framework of definitions of student mobility are presented, as well as factors that may motivate and hamper this process. A linear regression model of the market shares of intra- European students and a linear regression model of the ratios of foreign incoming/outgoing students of European countries are estimated. Finally, a Classification and Regression Tree (CART) algorithm is applied in order to explain the reasoning behind the decisions of students for long-term study abroad. The paper suggests that policy measures towards increasing student mobility flows will extend economic integration of the countries involved via human capital development and are most likely to increase present and future economic flows in a tangible way.